District Zero
by Insert a Catchy Penname Here
Summary: There was a world outside of Panem. Other countries failed as well, had their own Dark Days. Most of the people did not surrivive, but did came to a new republic. There's quite a road ahead before they can call themselves a new country, the one that contrasts Panem. For now, they are simply District Zero, the District everyone else forgot.
1. A broken world

District Zero 1

I am sent rolling down the hill by the bomb.

A flash of colors rise from the smoky ashes, and I scoot against the wall of what was my school. We all knew it wasn't safe the moment we came here, but it was safer than the places we once called home. The smoke fills my lungs, and I heave, trying to find what little clear air might remain. Someone hooks their arm around my thin waist, and I feel myself flung across the shoulders of a man with a scowl on his face.

A little girl is at his side. She must have been at school like I was, since she is in a sailor suit. But her school coat is seemingly long gone, and fat tears rolled down her pudgy face, her cheeks still plump from baby fat. I resist reaching down to pat the loose bun on her head, to tell her it would all be okay now. But I know as well as she does it's not, and our entire country is as good as gone.

Broken.

That's the best word to describe what used to be Earth.

Broken glass is implanted in one leg, and the other one I can barely feel. It was crushed moments ago by a falling piece of one of the crumbling buildings before the bomb hit, possibly landing directly on my school. There is no doubt many of my classmates are now dead, and I can't find enough energy to sob.

Yuki. Junya. They most likely didn't survive…they both sat near the large windows in her classroom while I sat near the door. The glass probably pelted them to death, or they might have gotten trapped, being the furthest ones from the door.

What about Mom and Dad? Well…who knew? They could've been in the park near the school and been blown to bits, or maybe they'd been at home and were now waiting for me in the docks. Maybe they'd sent this man to come and get me…but then why would he have his daughter with him? She couldn't have been more than five, and my heart went out to her as I slipped closer and closer to the blackness that seemed like subspace: Empty and uncaring, away from a broken world and seeming a lot better than the fading reality.

There is not much chaos until we near the docks. Most of us died when the bomb struck the school, since it was right in the center of town. I know that because I've gotten somewhat used to the reality of everyone's lives, and now it's finally happened to me.

Where they nerves aren't dead on my leg, they are screaming at the top of their nerve lungs. I gasp in sharply once and let go of reality, floating in subspace for what seemed like forever.

And there I was happy.

_XXXXXXX_

I am on the ground when my eyes reopen, and it seems like I am in a tent. I cough violently as soon as I wake up, and I feel somewhat small hands on my chest, stopping any thoughts of me sitting up. That's when I realize it's the girl from the last time I was in the real world, and I squint my eyes, making sure I'm seeing right and am not in another dream conquered within the blackness I'd been for who knows how long.

"Daddy is okay now. You and I are okay now, too," she tells me softly, brushing a loose bang out of my eyes, "we are all going to be okay."

Her words are somewhat comforting, since I am _very _unamused at not waking up at Heaven's gates. I don't want to be alive after what happened…who knows how long it really was? It seemed like only seconds ago, but if that was true, I'd still be trying to breathe through the smoke, still clinging to life for all my worth.

The man from before is beside me now, and I realize I am not totally on the ground. I am on a hard little mat, and there are many others around me of all genders and ages. Most of them are sleeping, or at least look like, others are crying, and many are many for home/food/water/anything else they could possibly moan about. Some of them I don't understand…their languages aren't Japanese or American, so they mean nothing to me.

"Where are we?" I use Japanese, my native language, first with the man, but it's obvious he's American by his response.

"Can you understand me?"

"Yes, I do," I reply in the English language, "where are we?"

"Who knows?" he has something cool pressed to my obviously fever inflamed forehead, "pretty much everything is gone by now. We're camped out on a small island…that's all we know right now."

I don't want to know what Earth looks like outside of the tent flaps, so I just close my eyes, "'Kay."

_A rescue team? _I think to myself as I begin to drift off to a land of nightmares, dreams, and restless sleep in between.

_XXXXXXX_

I have decided they are a rescue team long before I am being loaded onto another boat.

Slowly I became more human, eating, talking more, fighting illnesses with the aid of what herbs they'd managed to find, and bathing alone. The man from the day of the bombing was Mr. Whaker, and I came to know him and his daughter, Henoria, pretty well. They'd been living in Japan for about a year, fleeing of the remains of what _was _North America.

They told of a land called Panem, and it sounded like heaven compared to what the rest of the world as all humans knew had become. No powerful government had risen from our Dark Days, and I kind of had a feeling nobody would. We were all too scared, wounded, or emotionally scared to do so…if it ever happened, it would take quite some time.

But we had a start. The boats were gathering those of us who were well enough that we were certainly not to die from the damage done to us all, and we were to come to another piece of what I think was once the bottom of Asia. Rumors had it we had a small government starting up for us, and most people were keen to the idea of having someone in control. It's human nature to have someone ranked above and have a feeling of wanting of it to be that way for reasons I can't explain, unless you're like me and only going because your new father figure is making you.

Father _figure. _

I am convinced my family is dead by now. I haven't seen any of them since that fateful day in Japan, and I've pretty much forgotten them, even though I haven't. I am now more concerned with getting away from the Land of the Sick and Dying into the new government world we all knew of.

"It will be fine, I'm sure," Henoria is how I keep track of how much time has passed: She was five when I met her, and now she was twelve.

I have grown too, it seems. I was seven when I met her, so now I must be fourteen. I notice my body has changed, but I don't really care about that. I have become depressed, Mr. Whaker claims, and I don't blame him. It's either depressed or insane, so I classify myself as on the scale, constantly tipping on either one.

The air is cool, and I figure that it must be yet another fall. Time keeps marching on around me, endlessly, as my life keeps changing, morphing, destroying, and jerking me around until some days I am nothing more than a shell.

I remember being a happy little girl with my parents and my twin sister, Sabasa. I remember playing in the yard, being carefree and rolling the grass. And now that was only a memory in my darkened mind, me remembering it every day and hoping one day I will be like that again.

The rails are wet on the boat rim as we sail off, and I sigh, letting my breathe fog up as Henoria presses herself tightly to me for warmth. I wonder if the new government will be anything like Panem as I let go of the rail, sinking to deck and into a somewhat contenting sleep.

_XXXXXXX_

"Kyari," Henoria's voice whispers in my ear, and I roll my head to the side, letting my cheek press to her warm one, trying to pull myself back into sleep and failing, much to my dismay, "we're here."

My eyes are still glazy as I peer out across the foggy ocean. It seems warmer here, and according to Mr. Whaker, we're close to equator. I pretend like I know what that is as a lady in a strained, reeking apron hands me a soup can and spoon to share with my 'sister' and 'our' father. We take turns in the cold liquid with the one spoon as the island becomes more than a fogged-over dot, and when us and a few other families step out, I realize our boat is the second one to arrive.

A large man is standing before us all. He has tan hair that rakes down his neck and to his shoulders, and his skin is deeply tan. He has large bones and toned up chest, and his eyes are dark brown, sharp and orderly. He spits out something that I can only guess is German, and a couple of ladies from the boat pull me off into the forest island, not even bothering with my bag.

The sign outside the little hut home is written in pretty much every language but English, and I read the Japanese print as my little family as pulled after me by other ladies and men who are all looking exhausted and somewhat abused:

**Welcome to District Zero **


	2. Product of war

District Zero 2

Author Note: I know it's been a few minutes since I updated...*Blush*

* * *

The German-speaking man is directing other people with his assistants, who are all clad in torn, dirty, reeking clothes. I feel sorry for them, but not for very long as I am pushed into our new home. The hut is very simple: There is a well-worn green and brown rug at the doorsteps, and the floor is dirt and cold against my cut, bare feet. There is a small deep, dirtied orange cloth couch about five feet from the door, and another cot is on the other side of that. The toliet is behind a ratty blue bedsheet hanging from the cracked wooden sealing, and a tiny poker-looking table is barely squished in. The sun is shining lightly with the evening coming, and I watch a few wasps fly between the several cracks in the roof as Henoria and Mr. Whaker enter behind me.

"Wow..." Henoria chirps, "it's _beautiful_."

* * *

Being part of the rescue team, Mr. Whaker wasn't home a lot the next week. Nobody really spoke to each other, although I reconized a few from the tents we'd stayed in, and in the boats. I couldn't help but search for my family's faces in the crowd the first couple of days in the this new place, hoping they'd come from another surrving rescue group. But as seven days passed, I decide silently that they're all truly gone and passed, and that I will have to move on.

Besides, I've already got a second, small family. I call them family because I think they truly care for me, and I trust them a little more than I do most, which is none. Ever since I met her in the ruins of Japan, I've been especially fond of Henoria.

I doesn't matter if she's only two years younger than me. Her hair is a soft brown with a few red streaks, even though I thought it was black on the day of the bomb dropping on what was once my school, thanks to the heavy soot. She's still got slightly pudgy cheeks with baby fat, like she did when she was five, and she's even got a little belly, much to my pleasure. I never minded feeding her and still don't because I honestly don't care what happens to me now.

I am broken, like my country. But she still holds innocence and promise.

Her eyes are a pale green, almost ice-like but none the less beautiful. Despite her baby fat that makes her look even younger, she is thin, like the rest of us. She wears her hair down a lot, and somehow it is always straight, her bangs framed her high cheekbones and those eyes I admired for their shininess and gleaming nature when she got excited. The best part of it all was that she always hung at my side, never giving up on me went a went into a insane or highly depressed spell at random.

She was not afraid of me when everyone else was.

Mr. Whaker's the other exception, but with his size, he knows he could break me just as easy has he coaxed me into surrving silently. His hair was a deep red, so it almost looked black, and his eyes were like coals, calm but firey when he got angry. That's the only way could tell when he was, though, by the way those eyes sparked dangerously, like starting a dangerous fire. To be perfectly honest, he was pretty fat when I bet him, but the conditions have caused him to drop about 200 pounds within the span of about a year.

I have to say a liked the bigger version better.

"Kyari?" Henoria's chirp brings back down to reality, and I blink a few times, looking back into the cracked, dusty mirror we were both staring into before I zoned out...again, "Kyari, it's time for me to go feed the children, okay? I'll be back in about an hour. Do you need anything?"

"But I haven't braided your hair yet..." I liked to do it...for some reason, it was kind of like a hobbie because her hair was down her thighs, always very managable and pretty silky.

"Yes, you just did," her voice remains calm and soft, as it always does when I check out of this world, "thank you very much. It's beautiful."

"Like you," I feel a smile play a little on my cracked, light pink-white lips, and she stands on her toes, kissing me cheek as the little sister she is to me before she dashes out of the door. I know she's very detirmined about helping the young children, or anyway really, and that is why she's a healer.

It's hard for me to believe that was that crying five-year-old I tried to comfort, even though my leg was inhuman as I went insane that warm morning in my hometown. She reminds me so much of my twin...and I pardoned from the world everyone is currently forced to live in, thrown back to a vivid memory that is one of my favorites.

* * *

_Sabasa and I erupt in giggles as we watch our favoirte TV Show, Super Sentai. It was a show that was both humoring and adventorous, which both of us always adored. In America ,(or what it was at one point) they stole some of the footage of the battle scenes and called it Power Rangers. It wasn't NEAR as good as this addictive show, but it WAS the reason I learend English early in life. _

_She was always the very smart one, though, and learned far faster than I could ever dream of doing. Her and I were indenitcal with black hair and bright brown eyes, and now we were clad in the same flower-embrodded PJs as we watched TV that morning. We were five at the time, and our hair was pinned in buns as our parents slept soundly, seeming to be content at the fact we loved this show so very much. At least it kept us out of their hair..._

_"I wove him!" I pointed to the leader and captain, whom everyone called 'Marvelous', which is a funny name. _

_"But oo wove me more, right?" she pouted a little bit as me as the commericals began rolling in, intrupting our fun but giving us a chance to talk a bit. As very young girls, we had the theory we were going to marry each other so we would never be apart, unaware of homosexuatliy at the time, even though we were straight. _

_"Hai, hai!" I replied quickly, which means 'Yes yes' in our Native Language, "I ALWAYS wove oo more." _

_"Yay!" she crooned happily, snuggling against my side and making me tip over, since the two of us combined were very skinny and thereofre sometimes got knocked off balance by the wind and each other. _

_I giggle back, rolling to my back so that we can playfully wrestle around across the soft carpet in our living room. Our home wasn't very big, but it was always perfect in my small eyes. Even if she was always very smart and already reading four-grade-level books and doing math like that, I was a lot more creative. I would often draw during class instead of learning the alphebet, or paint during free time. I wanted to learn to write, since I loved books, but I was too bored from our teacher to really pay any attention. But thanks to that creative nature I'd always had, my pictures were hanging on the walls as well as her tests that she passed with ease. It made a house seem like a home to me even more, and I was proud of both of us. _

_"Are oo goin' make our house out of paint and wood?" Sabasa asked me as I rolled on top of her, and I giggled in approval. _

_"That's a really good idea! I will, just for us and no smelly boys!" I nodded before pausing, "'cept the Super Sentai. They live with us too!" _

_"Really?" she might have been smart, but she still had the dreams of a little girl. _

_"Really!" I assure, "I promise!" _

_We even pinkie swore on it before the show began again. And for that time, we two curled up in a red blanket, enjoying life together like we did most mornings and nights, before and after school..._

_Those were the times I was truly happy. _

* * *

When I open my eyes from the flashback, I find that Henoria is coming back in, aplogizing, "Sorry that took an hour and a half instead of one...some of the kids were covered in bug bites that were getting infected."

"It's fine," I fix my eyes back on the mirror, staring at myself and wondering if Sabasa and I would still be able to dress the same, or if we would look the same after seven years.

My hair is long now and reaching just below my knees, and it has waves rippling throughout it, so it's hard for me to comb as it is, which is why Henoria helps me each day do it with the brush we share. I'm rail thin because I don't let myself enough, and my cheeks have been hollowed so long, it's because a natural look for me. Mr. Whaker and Henoria both claim that I'm very pretty, but being a crazy, depressed ruin of the war that lives, I will never believe them.

"Mr. Yolksa called a meeting with everyone on the island," she tells me now, taking my hand and pulling me along gently, into the small, humid forest of our 'home' and to the beach where the boats parked with most of us a week ago.

Mr. Yolksa...right, that's the German dude I can hardly understand. Mr. Whaker's my translator, and half the time, not even he knows what the German-or whatever language it is-means himself. None the less, the Mr. Yolksa dude is yaking away into some microphone, oblivious to the sense that he's not making. Basically what we three get from it is that:

We will all be under his control for this day forth. We will learn to speak the same language, and should we defy him, we will be subjected to fitting punishment. We were all to follow a plump of a lady some classes in how to act, and then he walked off, smirking like he was really something.

I don't care who he is. A person is a person, and no person should be forced to bow before another person. God is the only kind there will ever truly be, and it was not His fault this happened to Earth. It was humans, honestly, and besides...I was still going to believe and trust in Him, no matter happened. Even so, this guy obviously that he was going to change everything around here, and I refuse to be obey.

"C'mon now, Kyari," I guess Henoria thinks that I'm just tuning out of life again, because she's using the tone she uses when I do as she guides me along, us following our walding teacher with the other people, "it's time for us to go to class now, okay?"

I am suddenly aware of how she speaks to me now like I am a child, not older and supposidly more mature, "I'm still here...I'm not going to class." After I mumble that, I slip my hand free and fall behind the ground with her as she looks surprised and worried.

"What do you mean you're not going?"

"I mean I'm not going. No man should bow to another,"

"But we don't have a choice..."

"Yes we do," I insist, turning my back to the rest and starting back into the direction of our 'home', "we just don't go."

"But we'll punished!" she stomps her foot a bit, standing her ground with her small body rigid. She doesn't know whether or not to follow or stop me, and I can't blame her.

"Not if we aren't a part of them," my logic is simple and completely true. If we nether partook in him, we're not his servants to master/punish.

I don't listen as she insists we don't have a choice, even as she follows me back. A few other people stare, surprised, looking a bit longing to join us. If they wanted too, I won't really care. I am not a leader, and I am not a master, either. I am product of what happens when dreams are crushed, what really happens when war desends on the world. I am broken inside, and maybe I am better off as such.

All I want with my life from now until I die is care for my little sister, and, in return, Mr. Whaker and her would care for me.

Simple as that.


	3. Schedule

District Zero 3

_**Author Note: **_Okay, I really, really, really, REALLY want this story to be noticed and popular on the sight *Hopeful face* I mean, I think it's a good idea at least...:p Anywho, to whom every it may concern...

R and R, and tell your friends! Your parents! Your friends' friends! Your parents' friends' friends! Your dog! Your cat! Your fish! Your mirror! Tell about this story, will ya? ;)

And, above all, the ultimante point of this note...

ENJOY! :D

* * *

_7 A.M. Breakfast_

_7: 30 A. M - 9: 45 A.M.: Language Class_

_9: 46 A. M. - 11: 00 A.M: Male training unit, female mateniance unit _

_11: 01 A.M- 12: 00 P.M. : Lunch_

_12: 01 P.M- 1: 10 P.M: Reflection _

_1: 11 P.M.- 3: 00 P.M.: Matanience _

_3: 00 P.M. - 5: 00 P.M: Daily activity _

_5: 01 P.M- 6: 00 P.M: Punishment implemcation _

_6: 01 P.M. - 7: 00 P.M: Dinner _

_7: 01 P.M- 8: 00 P.M. : Nightly matienance_

_8: 01 P.M. - 9: 40 P.M. : Showering, reflection _

_9: 41 P.M - 6. 00 A.M. : Sleep_

**_If any of the above times are missed or not followed, punishment implemication will be severe. _**

* * *

_7 A.M. Breakfast_

_7: 30 A. M - 9: 45 A.M.: Language Class_

Even though my schedule tells me not too, (like I care,) I am sleeping in.

Loud banging jars me awake, and I glare at the door through my sticky, drowsy daze. Rolling to my side, I close my eyes once again and try to block it out, ending up failing. Henoria's eyes go wide, looking at me catiously from where she was asleep agaist me on the ratty blue couch, but I just shake my head. She's been doing as I've been doing by not paying any mind to what everyone's scedule says, but it makes her a lot more on edge than it will ever make me.

"Kyari..." she whispers fearfully.

The banging gets harder and more demanding, and I roll off the bed, opening it with a half-asleep glare. The severant glares right back at me, and I notice a whip in his hands.

"It is time for class," he growls, grabbing my hair instantly, but I'll be damned if I let somebody like that try to handle me like that.

Whirling on one heel, (even though it hurts my head because he's gripping my hair still,) I grab the handle of the whip, yanking it free. The German dude treats his severant cruelly, so they're all pretty weak; he falls forward. Easily, I elbow him in the face, making him fall to his back as I lean on him one with one foot, whip tight in one hand.

"No," I reply with a shrug, turning and shutting the door behind me; I drop the whip and crawl back on the couch with Henoria, ignoring her shocked, almost afraid, stare.

* * *

_____11: 01 A.M- 12: 00 P.M. : Lunch_

They have fixed beef stew, (or so they call it,) and everyone is eating in the area of forest that we call a lunchroom. Instead of joining them, I go off to a few berry bushes I'd found recently and made a meal of strawberries.

* * *

___12: 01 P.M- 1: 10 P.M: Reflection _

_1:__ 11 P.M.- 3: 00 P.M.: Matanience _

"You're going to Matienance."

Mr. Whaker is trying to tell me like it is, but I'm not going to listen. The emotions I feel for him and Henoria aren't love; my heart can't handle that and my body rejects that emotion like it's a virus. But I do accept them and care about them fairly enough; they are a makeshift family to me. Even if he is my makeshift father, though, he's not my dad, and I won't treat him as such.

"No," I shake my head, staring him down as he glares.

"Let's go, Kyari," he grabs my arm and starts trying to drag me out, but I grab for the door frame, listening as the entire hut creaks and rocks as he tries to keep pullig against my grip, "Kyari, if you don't listen to me right now.."

"I'm not going to follow that schedule," I jerk my wrist away as he gets angrier, "if I'm not a severant to begin with, he can't control me."

"Master Yaclov will kill you if you do not obey him!" Mr. Whaker snaps at me, a little too loudly if he wanted to avoid attention, "and I am not going to let you be murdered!"

"No," I reply plainly, "I am not his to control. If he does not control me in the first place, he can not punish me as if I am his. The same for you and Henoria."

"He is forcing everyone to do as he says, Kyari!" he grabs my shoulder now, yanking me hard enough to rip my fingers away from the doorframe, "he will kill you easily! He's already excueted three of us for showing up late for breakfast, damn it!"

Henoria is staring at us, tears in her wide eyes, but I just yank away again with slight struggle, my voice hardened as I half hiss, "Then why I am _I _still here?"

* * *

_____3: 00 P.M. - 5: 00 P.M: Daily activity _

The activity is watching some film that the German guy/Master Yaclov prepared for us, and even though I'm doing it from the shadows, I go with the crowd to see out of curiousity. It's about Panem, the other country formed since the world ended, and the control over it is obviously pretty strict. There are 13 Districts, all designed on different specialites, and I get the idea Yaclov wants us to do the same eventually.

As if.

* * *

___5: 01 P.M- 6: 00 P.M: Punishment implemcation _

Technically, I'm supposed to be a part of the activity on the punishment. Which, of course, means that I'm not going.

The punishment is insane and completely unfair, anyway. There are eleven others due to be punished, and the slaves being forced to do it seem to be enjoying it. Five of them are whipped numorous times in front of all eyes- inluding babies and toddlers'. Four of them are beaten and then hung, and the other two are sent under the ground in some chamber, like a prision.

"Where is the girl?" one of the severants growls to the other, and I watch from the shadows, tucked beneath the underbrush-cover thicket.

"Hell if I know," he growls back, shrugging and saying, "just don't mention it to Master. You know he's doesn't ever check the list."

I decide I like that one.

* * *

_6: 01 P.M. - 7: 00 P.M: Dinner _

Going a little further than the strawberry bushes, I discover blueberry bushes and make a meal out of that. It seems a lot more satisfying than old eggs, now doesn't it?

* * *

_7: 01 P.M- 8: 00 P.M. : Nightly matienance_

"You know, our hut looks like crap."

Henoria has been joining the other groups in the schedule since Mr. Whaker ordered us too, but now she looks at me in surprise. It's some kind of rule to respect all the 'blessings' Yacov has 'given' us, but I'm not worried about it like she is. I'm a realist, and the hut is pretty inhuman, especially when all of the huts match ours.

"Be careful what you say..." she whispers nervously to me, and I shrug, taking off the dusty light blue sheet over the couch and starting my own 'matienence.'

* * *

_8: 01 P.M. - 9: 40 P.M. : Showering, reflection _

Mr. Whaker isn't speaking to me after he and Henoria shower, or looking at me for that matter.

At least the hut looks better; the dust is lifted and the the furnature is straighter/cleaner. Sighing at him, I lean back on the couch and run my hands through my hair, feeling extremely tired all of a sudden. Henoria curls up beside me, looking at me with big, worried, sad eyes for a moment, and I wrap my arm around her. She always tries to keep this 'family' together, but sometimes she's just no enough.

But it's not my fault Mr. Whaker is being sucky.

* * *

_9: 41 P.M - 6. 00 A.M. : Sleep_

You know, this is the only thing on the schedule I actually do


End file.
